160 réponses à ce sujet

[CosmicGnosis]

Yep, this opinion needed to be expressed. ME3 is my personal favorite, but I love the whole trilogy. I think the ending, with the Extended Cut, is ultimately satisfying, and encourages us to consider the consequences of all the world-changing decisions we made. I was frustrated with the original presentation, and the EC isn't perfect, but I greatly appreciate the intended point. 

 

The story was about Shepard as a Nietzchean Übermensch, a charismatic soldier who managed to unite an entire galaxy and overthrow a billion-year-old evolutionary control system. He fought the gods themselves, and made a choice that transcended the domain of mortals, beyond good and evil; the choice of a god. He either killed them, replaced them, or reconciled them with the mortal realm. He was a champion of life, and was granted the authority to define it. He will be remembered for all time. The stuff of legends and myths.

 

Just trying to bring some positivity to this often pessimistic forum.

[Battlebloodmage]

I'm not sure the point of "uniting" the galaxy when the ending has nothing to do with troops or how united and powerful we stand together. We'd lose regardless. The ending is basically about Shep stumbles on th Star brat and choose a pretty color. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love ME3, it's my favorite out of the trilogy since they make the gameplay smoother and the story is also very good and interesting. I like the non-imported version better since it actually forces hard choices in the game like choosing between the quarian and the geth. 

[Midnight Bliss]

I'm so tempted to post my big blurb about this buuuut...

[CosmicGnosis]

I'm not sure the point of "uniting" the galaxy when the ending has nothing to do with troops or how united and powerful we stand together. We'd lose regardless. The ending is basically about Shep stumbles on th Star brat, and choose a pretty color. 

We built the Crucible, the symbol of life's rebellion against the artificial harvest cycle. Entropy, perhaps.

[SporkFu]

My preferred method of role-playing Shep was as a hero who did indeed unite the galaxy. I like to think that without doing that, the crucible would never have been completed, would never have been docked with the Citadel, and Shep would never have been able to make the decision CosmicGnosis mentions. Uniting the galaxy was important as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not blind. I haven't got my head in the sand. The game, the trilogy, has flaws and I can make fun of them, or express disappointment, or speculate about what I would have liked to see done different. Doesn't change the fact that I really like these games, and ME3 at least as much as the others.

[Ieldra]

Yep, this opinion needed to be expressed. ME3 is my personal favorite, but I love the whole trilogy. I think the ending, with the Extended Cut, is ultimately satisfying, and encourages us to consider the consequences of all the world-changing decisions we made. I was frustrated with the original presentation, and the EC isn't perfect, but I greatly appreciate the intended point. 

 

The story was about Shepard as a Nietzchean Übermensch, a charismatic soldier who managed to unite an entire galaxy and overthrow a billion-year-old evolutionary control system. He fought the gods themselves, and made a choice that transcended the domain of mortals, beyond good and evil; the choice of a god. He either killed them, replaced them, or reconciled them with the mortal realm. He was a champion of life, and was granted the authority to define it. He will be remembered for all time. The stuff of legends and myths.

 

Just trying to bring some positivity to this often pessimistic forum.

As I've said before: I appreciate the concept as much as you do, but I have problems with the implementation. A story such as this, among other things, shouldn't give me a canonically stupid protagonist and insult my intellect with its explanations. Also, while the ending choices were philosophically interesting, they were ruined by the way they were presented and by the main expositor. Meanwhile, the story that came before, including most of the choices in the side-plots, was annoyingly traditionalist, and because of that, failed to lay an appropriate groundwork.

 

I would've loved to play Shepard as you see them, but I never got that vibe. To me, Shepard appeared as a low-IQ Joe Everyman with little understanding of the world and little competence in anything except to kill stuff, in a story that - excluding the ending - always set me up to make choices according to the delusionary and immature philosophical stance "follow your heart and everything will be ok".

 

As I see it, we had a setup that could've made a groundbreaking story that challenged the way we see ourselves in the hands of a competent writer, but we ended up with a cheap TV show full of contrived drama and traditionalist stereotypes. The narrative tools available to ME3's writers were clearly insufficient to tell a story of such a grand scope - both in time and space and in philosophy.

[Catastrophy]

So, it's time to repent, then? And have a good underpinning afterwards?

[malloc]

Yep, this opinion needed to be expressed. ME3 is my personal favorite, but I love the whole trilogy. I think the ending, with the Extended Cut, is ultimately satisfying, and encourages us to consider the consequences of all the world-changing decisions we made. I was frustrated with the original presentation, and the EC isn't perfect, but I greatly appreciate the intended point. 
 
The story was about Shepard as a Nietzchean Übermensch, a charismatic soldier who managed to unite an entire galaxy and overthrow a billion-year-old evolutionary control system. He fought the gods themselves, and made a choice that transcended the domain of mortals, beyond good and evil; the choice of a god. He either killed them, replaced them, or reconciled them with the mortal realm. He was a champion of life, and was granted the authority to define it. He will be remembered for all time. The stuff of legends and myths.
 
Just trying to bring some positivity to this often pessimistic forum.

Yes, talking about ubermensch, it is fitting that Shepard is also inspired by hitler as he led one of the biggest cases of Genocide the galaxy has ever seen. I like this comparison OP

[Ieldra]

Yes, talking about ubermensch, it is fitting that Shepard is also inspired by hitler as he led one of the biggest cases of Genocide the galaxy has ever seen. I like this comparison OP

There is no necessary connection between the two. Yes, Nietzsche was elitist and despised egalitarianism, but he wasn't a racist and didn't preach genocide. His Übermensch was as much an expression of despair about a lack of a vision for the future of humanity. "Man is a bridge between ape and Übermensch" is a quote I rather like. I don't agree at all with his idea of what the human of the future should be like, but I agree with the metaphor. We are mired in our little everyday concerns that matter not at all in the greater scheme of things, and few people think about the future if it doesn't concern their own children. Nietzsche called that "decadence", and I agree with him in that. Most stories, including 99% of ME, celebrate what we are. I say there is little reason for that. We should rather celebrate what we can become and work towards that. 

 

This is one reason why I liked the idea (if not the implementation) of ME3's Synthesis ending. I don't know whether it will be for better or worse at the time when I make the decision, but it will be a significant step towards something that isn't like the past.  

 

@Catastrophy:

Who do you think should repent exactly what?

[Chealec]

Yes, talking about ubermensch, it is fitting that Shepard is also inspired by hitler as he led one of the biggest cases of Genocide the galaxy has ever seen. I like this comparison OP

 

 

 

New ME:A protag concept art confirmed...

[Catastrophy]

[...]

 

@Catastrophy:

Who do you think should repent exactly what?

These forum members have a LOT to repent. And what's to argue if there's a good underpinning afterwards? Win-win in my eyes.

[Khrystyn]

Nice sentiment OP, but your thread here belongs in the ME-3 General Discussion forum.

[Oldren Shepard]

As I've said before: I appreciate the concept as much as you do, but I have problems with the implementation. A story such as this, among other things, shouldn't give me a canonically stupid protagonist and insult my intellect with its explanations. Also, while the ending choices were philosophically interesting, they were ruined by the way they were presented and by the main expositor. Meanwhile, the story that came before, including most of the choices in the side-plots, was annoyingly traditionalist, and because of that, failed to lay an appropriate groundwork.

 

I would've loved to play Shepard as you see them, but I never got that vibe. To me, Shepard appeared as a low-IQ Joe Everyman with little understanding of the world and little competence in anything except to kill stuff, in a story that - excluding the ending - always set me up to make choices according to the delusionary and immature philosophical stance "follow your heart and everything will be ok".

 

As I see it, we had a setup that could've made a groundbreaking story that challenged the way we see ourselves in the hands of a competent writer, but we ended up with a cheap TV show full of contrived drama and traditionalist stereotypes. The narrative tools available to ME3's writers were clearly insufficient to tell a story of such a grand scope - both in time and space and in philosophy.

wow i''m eager to play one of your games

[Linkenski]

Yes yes, symbolizm and subjective interpretation. We know it can mean something but on face value it has to work too and it... can... but the whole Synthetic vs Organics drivel at the end comes out of nowhere unless you have Javik DLC or Leviathan DLC (that totally solidify the idea as the most central issue we need to solve... >_>) or somehow figured that those few missions all the way back in ME1 with the Luna VI or the money-stealing AI on the Citadel were foreshadowing something in ME3, which they obviously were /s

 

But lately I have been thinking about some of the subtextual implications of the ending and I do think it hits home in the idea that Reapers are gods who control mankind (which we already knew) and that Shepard uniting the galaxy and becoming legend has its share of biblical references, as does the nature of man vs machine which is related to the Reapers and the fact that Shepard was reborn as an organic/synthetic hybrid.

 

There are bits and pieces like that and maybe those are underapprieciated and overlooked but the ending should've been more clear in what it DOES mean on a basic level and it should've come to in a way that didn't make you go "what the hell just happened?" Just no. Not in the last 10 minutes of such a drawn-out narrative -- not in a trilogy, unless you first resolve the character-focus or all the subplots. Extended Cut partly fixes this, I admit.

 

As with Lost and Battlestar Galactica, the problem with their shitty endings was because of the misguidedness of their writers. They say they're happy they told the story how they wanted to tell it; more power to them... but their reasoning for ending it they way they did was "We had other ideas... but... they weren't epic enough" and the thing both shows and Mass Effect's writing staff had in common here is that both think that an ending has to impose meaning on the story instead of driving home the meaning they had already imprinted in their work just a few episodes, missions, seasons or games before it and then reflect on that meaning or ponder its implications in the epilogue. In an ending you focus on ending the central conflict you set out to resolve when the very first hour of the story began, you don't create a seperate conflict and then try to resolve that and thereby confuse the entire coherence of the narrative.

[Vox Draco]

Yep, this opinion needed to be expressed. ME3 is my personal favorite, but I love the whole trilogy. I think the ending, with the Extended Cut, is ultimately satisfying, and encourages us to consider the consequences of all the world-changing decisions we made. I was frustrated with the original presentation, and the EC isn't perfect, but I greatly appreciate the intended point. 

 

The story was about Shepard as a Nietzchean Übermensch, a charismatic soldier who managed to unite an entire galaxy and overthrow a billion-year-old evolutionary control system. He fought the gods themselves, and made a choice that transcended the domain of mortals, beyond good and evil; the choice of a god. He either killed them, replaced them, or reconciled them with the mortal realm. He was a champion of life, and was granted the authority to define it. He will be remembered for all time. The stuff of legends and myths.

 

Just trying to bring some positivity to this often pessimistic forum.

 

All power to opinions! Can't say anything nice or bad about the EC - I never played the game with it, never saw footage of it, also never touched ANY of the DLCs to ME3 (and also stopped caring to buy the Arrival DLC or Shadowbroker in that regard...)

 

For me the story started in ME1 was simple, VERY simple, and hence so intriguing: WE saw mankind entering a new age, among alien races, and we had to find a place among them, get respected, and Shepard was never an Übermensch for me, but simply a very talentedm capable officer that found herself in the midst of all this. And it was about an alien race of very powerful beings that lurked in the darkness of outer space and got ready to come to us and wipe us out for ... reasons...

 

I partly blame my own expectations of how the story would go on from their for not liking it one bit since ME2 started. I hated that everyone was portayed as stupid (mankind, council-races etc) like in some cheap catastrophe-flick ("but mayor, we HAVE the evidence the volcano will burst and drown us in pools of lava-sharks!" "I don't care, the potatoe-festival HAS to begin on time!"). Ihated that we got no proper antogonist, and that instead of preparing ourselves and the galaxy for the inevatable war against the already established Reapers we only fought their proxies - and everything in the end felt so utterly pointless!

 

The endings ... I see what they tried to do there, but the execution is so cringeworthy inept it hurts, literally hurts. I could probably deal with each ending IF they had set up everything porperly in the main games. I simpyl never felt this way - ME2 was such a waste of storytelling-time and setting up things for the finale. For example they imply the Reapers (as the name itself gives away!) are harvesters of intelligent life to reproduce with it. I was totally fine and horrified enough by this. And still I see NO reason why they smacked all this unnecessary "peseudo-philisophical" stuff onto it - to make it seem deeper?

 

If the RGB-Endings had evolved more naturally? Maybe I'd have bought it. I even think that IF they had spared us the weird surreal scenery with the spaceghost and instead had incorporated all of that the same manner and presentation as the confrontation with the Admiral and TIM (TIM could have acted like the representation of the Reapers for example) - even THAT would have been better. But the current way the choices are presented? I see them neither as deep or philosophical, but simply as tacked on without having any place in the actual game. Like an after-thought, a re-shoot after test-screening failed and the studio demanded a wrap-up of some kind.

 

I don't want to take the ending away from you and the enjoyment you get from it though. In fact, I realize I am mightily jealous at people like you that can take something out of Mass Effect still - while I simply cannot enjoy it. Neither the endings themselves, nor the games prior. The journey is the reward? Not for me, when the trip ends in that way it taints the entire vacation in space for me, sadly...

 

Just hope that Andromeda has NO connections to the story of ME, so I can treat it like a total standalone-game...

[KaiserShep]

There is no necessary connection between the two. Yes, Nietzsche was elitist and despised egalitarianism, but he wasn't a racist and didn't preach genocide. His Übermensch was as much an expression of despair about a lack of a vision for the future of humanity. "Man is a bridge between ape and Übermensch" is a quote I rather like. I don't agree at all with his idea of what the human of the future should be like, but I agree with the metaphor. We are mired in our little everyday concerns that matter not at all in the greater scheme of things, and few people think about the future if it doesn't concern their own children. Nietzsche called that "decadence", and I agree with him in that. Most stories, including 99% of ME, celebrate what we are. I say there is little reason for that. We should rather celebrate what we can become and work towards that. 
 
This is one reason why I liked the idea (if not the implementation) of ME3's Synthesis ending. I don't know whether it will be for better or worse at the time when I make the decision, but it will be a significant step towards something that isn't like the past.  
 
@Catastrophy:
Who do you think should repent exactly what?

Part of me wants to like the idea of synthesis, but the game manages to make it so unpalatable that I'd rather just kill whole factions to avoid it.

[This is the End My Friend]

Plus, its just killing the Geth and EDI, not a big loss.

[Vox Draco]

Plus, its just killing the Geth and EDI, not a big loss.

 

Finally a voice of reason! Never understood why people had so much trouble switching off toasters and shutting down programs to save billions of actual life

[lucky5hot]

Yep, this opinion needed to be expressed. ME3 is my personal favorite, but I love the whole trilogy. I think the ending, with the Extended Cut, is ultimately satisfying, and encourages us to consider the consequences of all the world-changing decisions we made. I was frustrated with the original presentation, and the EC isn't perfect, but I greatly appreciate the intended point. 

 

The story was about Shepard as a Nietzchean Übermensch, a charismatic soldier who managed to unite an entire galaxy and overthrow a billion-year-old evolutionary control system. He fought the gods themselves, and made a choice that transcended the domain of mortals, beyond good and evil; the choice of a god. He either killed them, replaced them, or reconciled them with the mortal realm. He was a champion of life, and was granted the authority to define it. He will be remembered for all time. The stuff of legends and myths.

 

Just trying to bring some positivity to this often pessimistic forum.

 

I saw it a little differently to you but thats an interesting take. I've done no university level courses on Philosophy but I've read a few books by good authors and ME is my favourite game from a narrative perspective, especially ME1. Some notes below:

 

Summary

 

Modern reinvention of classic literature in the context/environment of Sci-Fi. A true masterpiece IMHO.

 

Protagonist (Shepard) - Classic Hero Archtype

 

- tension between meaning and absurdity—as the fundamental condition of human existence.                          

- identify the core concepts of "necessity," "fate," and "heroic excellence" as they define the Hero's life mission and task. Consider the notion of the agon - the struggle of the Hero to fulfill his or her destiny. 

- Greek drama, and a further incarnation of the "Heroic ideal", the tragic hero. Contemplate Aristotle's and Nietzsche's seminal ideas on tragic drama, where beauty and transcendence arise from a willing embrace of life.

- Influences Plato's republic, the 'heroic ideal' late stoicism.

 

By every account, the Shepard is the classic hero, very well explored through the narrative.

 

Antagonist (Reapers) - an Epitome of philosophy on the absurdity and the meaning of life.

 

In my opinion, as beautiful as the protagonist is explored, the antagonist and its embodiment of philosophy ideas is even more of a masterpiece. Its less about the reapers as a thing/person, and more about what they represent.

 

The reapers are the logical advancement of human kind, tens of thousands to millions of years in the future. And its a reconsideration of the same philosophical ideas we have today, millions or perhaps a billion years in the future.

 

Underwritten in the rhetoric of 'The Great Filter', through 'The Fermi Paradox', (two sci-fi concepts), the reapers create an environment to consider their philosophical questions in one of the most intense ways I've ever seen it realized.

 

I could write 10 pages on why I think the antagonist is really interesting but I think its something you need to start pulling threads on and see it unwrap yourself. 

 

Conclusion

 

So, although i some Nietzsche's ideas floating around, I dont really see the ubermensche. I see an classic hero, (perhaps in stark contrast to your opinion, it is that the hero could come from the common man), in battle with the reapers, (who are the embodiment of meaning and absurdity). This is played out on an amazing sci-fi landscape.

 

I know that the 'great filter' has been written about before. Either the guys behind this like Drew are complete geniuses or perhaps they borrowed and built it off some really great authors doing similar stuff in the past. Either way, my favourite game in terms of narrative by far

 

Gameplay in 2-3 were the best, and they were great games. However, narrative in ME1 was was superior IMHO, a home run.

 

After finishing ME1, all the excellence in narrative and literature was underpinned and complete. Playing games 2-3 was really just a formality and essentially just controlling the hero as he finished off the story. Even though the character development was arguably better in 2-3, from a strictly narrative perspective, ME1 wins for me hands down, because its where all the main themes/ideas happens. After you finish ME1, all the cool concepts that I mentioned above are already explored, all that is left is playing out the rest of the trilogy to win with a bunch of interesting but smaller ideas/concepts being explored.

 

This said, I would play 10 more ME games because the intrigue, exploration, and various other subplots alone were excellent and superior to most other games so they've a fan in me for life now.

[Khrystyn]

....  the whole Synthetic vs Organics drivel at the end comes out of nowhere unless you have Javik DLC or Leviathan DLC (that totally solidify the idea as the most central issue we need to solve... >_>) or somehow figured that those few missions all the way back in ME1 with the Luna VI or the money-stealing AI on the Citadel were foreshadowing something in ME3, which they obviously were.

 

The moment in ME-1 where I understood that the quarians had over-developed the geth (thanks, Tali for 'splaining it so well in Udina's office), and the geth were revolting, I immediately thought of Asimov's I, Robot. The struggle between organics coping with their 'too smart' synthetic creations is the common grist in the Sci-Fi story mill. How this common story element is developed in a fresh way always tickles my fancy. I never tire of it, not do I tire of ME Trilogy, no matter what happens in ME:A.

[wyrdx]

The theme of creations ruling their creators seems more Marx than Nietzsche given that the red solution(destruction) is the only one that has the PC survive.

[fchopin]

The moment in ME-1 where I understood that the quarians had over-developed the geth (thanks, Tali for 'splaining it so well in Udina's office), and the geth were revolting, I immediately thought of Asimov's I, Robot. The struggle between organics coping with their 'too smart' synthetic creations is the common grist in the Sci-Fi story mill. How this common story element is developed in a fresh way always tickles my fancy. I never tire of it, not do I tire of ME Trilogy, no matter what happens in ME:A.

 

I agree with you but it should have been done better in ME, the way it was done was very simplistic.

Just like the reapers thinking was very simplistic, they simply did not do their homework on robotics and the robotic mind.

[Khrystyn]

I agree with you but it should have been done better in ME, the way it was done was very simplistic.

Just like the reapers thinking was very simplistic, they simply did not do their homework on robotics and the robotic mind.

 

I know. I can forgive a lot when I doubt I could write an entire trilogy myself, let alone a better one. I'm a simpleton on my best days anyway.

[CosmicGnosis]

As I've said before: I appreciate the concept as much as you do, but I have problems with the implementation. A story such as this, among other things, shouldn't give me a canonically stupid protagonist and insult my intellect with its explanations. Also, while the ending choices were philosophically interesting, they were ruined by the way they were presented and by the main expositor. Meanwhile, the story that came before, including most of the choices in the side-plots, was annoyingly traditionalist, and because of that, failed to lay an appropriate groundwork.

 

I would've loved to play Shepard as you see them, but I never got that vibe. To me, Shepard appeared as a low-IQ Joe Everyman with little understanding of the world and little competence in anything except to kill stuff, in a story that - excluding the ending - always set me up to make choices according to the delusionary and immature philosophical stance "follow your heart and everything will be ok".

 

As I see it, we had a setup that could've made a groundbreaking story that challenged the way we see ourselves in the hands of a competent writer, but we ended up with a cheap TV show full of contrived drama and traditionalist stereotypes. The narrative tools available to ME3's writers were clearly insufficient to tell a story of such a grand scope - both in time and space and in philosophy.

I attribute most, maybe even all, of Shepard's dumb moments to clumsy exposition that is aimed at the player. Thus, they don't really bother me. I also understand your frustration with the common sentiments expressed in mainstream stories; it's an interesting observation. For some reason, though, I don't feel like Mass Effect beats me over the head with them as much as you seem to feel. They are there, of course, but I don't think it's that bad.

 

For example, curing the genophage is supposed to be the "feel-good-and-thus-is-right" decision, but honestly, the case for sabotage is very compelling, and I've found it more appealing in recent times. I also think this why BioWare didn't include an epilogue at release; they didn't want to pass judgment on any decisions. It's totally valid to believe that even a Wrex-led krogan will lead to disaster. I personally believe that it could cause significant problems after the Destruction ending. I'm more comfortable with curing the genophage in the Control and Synthesis scenarios.

[UpUpAway95]

I attribute most, maybe even all, of Shepard's dumb moments to clumsy exposition that is aimed at the player. Thus, they don't really bother me. I also understand your frustration with the common sentiments expressed in mainstream stories; it's an interesting observation. For some reason, though, I don't feel like Mass Effect beats me over the head with them as much as you seem to feel. They are there, of course, but I don't think it's that bad.

 

I certainly don't agree with every theory you've presented in this thread, but I think this statement is right on the money... and part of what supports that is indeed the fact that enough latitude was present that  I can disagree with your interpretation and you can disagree with mine and both of us can find indications in the game that support our moral stance either way.  Well said.

 

I think part of the problem is that people have trouble disassociating the character they build in the game from their own person and can't "step outside themselves and their own moral leanings" enough to appreciate that both sides have things that support... AND both sides have holes and weaknesses in that support.  What they become focused on and see is only that their preferred stance lacks complete support... and this is most evident to them in the ending.  I've intentionally played Shepard in many different ways... and then the question I ask myself at the end is "not what ending I would prefer"... but what ending might Shepard have desired.  For example, IF he/she is a Shepard who promoted a romance between EDI and Joker (because Joker seemed to like EDI), then I imagine that Shepard might have been reluctant to wipe EDI out, leaving his/her good friend Joker to have to mourn her loss... or, maybe, he/she was the Shepard who really did not consider Joker much of a friend and, as a result, didn't blink at destroying EDI along with all the Geth. 

 

Given the unrealistic expectation that Bioware faced (i.e. that they could somehow provide an EPIC ending that would satisfy the varying moral stances of all the different gamers out there AND completely disassociate themselves and their own opinions from their literary work), I think Bioware actually did a pretty good job.  Despite all the crying, they did give people latitude to interpret their own ending into the game... and in support of that, I throw in the thought that we are 4 years out and STILL arguing about it all much in the same way that people still discuss Tennyson's Ulysses, Dante's Inferno, MacBeth, Hamlet, etc.  Is Bioware's writing up to that level?  Certainly not... it's a video game after all... but I don't think they did a "horrible" job either.